My Take On The First Presidential Debate – Who Won?

I’m going to continue doing what I set out to do with this blog – be honest.

Last night’s debate was horrendous. As I write this post now, (and it’s not going to be a long post), I still cannot figure out what was on the President’s mind. This is the man who has been the leader of the free world for the last 4 years. He has met with, and had meetings with other world leaders. He has walked the walk and talked the talk in his commitment to capture and or kill terrorists. This president has dealt with an economy that was on the brink of collapse and because his leadership, he has stabilized this country and we are now on the right track to getting things back to where things should be.

Mr. Obama has faced pressures before and has always found ways to deal with and handle those situations. What happened last night in the debate left me believing that Mr. Obama came to this debate expecting that his title – Mr. President – would be enough.

It wasn’t.

Or maybe the Obama reelection team bought into the pre-debate hype by the media that Romney would be armed with zingers, and they advised the president to stay ‘presidential,’ and stick only with facts. Yes, in the ideal world with a Republican candidate who is grounded in reality, staying presidential would be okay. But Mitt Romney is not grounded in reality. He has decided to run a campaign based on lies and deceit, a fact that was evident from the very first ad his campaign produced where they intentionally misrepresented a quote the president was making.

Faced with such a wishy-washy flip-flopping candidate who changes his position and panders to every single group, it was imperative that Mr. Obama came on stage prepared to show the stark differences between his policies and those of Mr. Romney. It was imperative that he stopped Romney in his tracks when Romney opened his mouth and lied about the $716 billion of waste taken out of Medicare. The president needed to let the American public know each time Romney told a lie. He needed to drive the debate, be aggressive in defending his policies over the last 4 years and in pointing out that Romney’s policies amounts to a trust, wait and see con game. The president of the United States needed to be strong. He had to be assertive.

But instead I sat in my living room like millions of Americans nationwide and watched a dejected man on stage. I watched Mr. Obama – the man who holds the most powerful position in the free world – hang his head, refusing to look Mr. Romney in the face. And I watched in amazement as Mr. Romney directed the flow of the debate, lying at every turn, going unchallenged.

After the debate, Al Sharpton from MSNBC was heard taking a more optimistic view of the President’s performance. Sharpton said that the way the president allowed Romney to dominate the debate was masterful, because the positions Romney adopted last night “are not positions he preached in his campaign.” These new positions Sharpton concluded, will be more ammunition for fact-checkers and Democrats who will now be able to once again, point out the fact that Romney is a flip flopper… a liar… a spineless little man who panders to every group to get elected.

“We have his previous positions on tape!” Sharpton said.

Well I hope Sharpton is right, but I don’t know if I could sit through another lack luster performance by the president.

Will I vote for Mr. Obama in November? Of course I will. I’m not crazy! I agree with the policies he’s put in place so far and I believe Mr. Romney was serious when he said he’s not concerned about the very poor then degraded 47% of Americans as lazy moochers who rely on the government for food and shelter. Yes, Mr. Obama still gets my vote, but I want him to fight in these debates like his reelection depends on it, because it does!

Debate video.